


Kara Thrace's No Good, Rotten, Very Bad Day

by oxymoronassoc



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-11-15 13:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11231955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxymoronassoc/pseuds/oxymoronassoc
Summary: Just when you thought your day couldn't get any worse, they go and serve mystery meat for dinner. But at least there's a food fight.Originally written 2/7/06





	Kara Thrace's No Good, Rotten, Very Bad Day

Kara wasn't sure her day could get any worse. Then she went to the mess for dinner.

It wasn't enough that her last clean (well cleanish) tank had somehow acquired (she'd drunkenly locked it half in the locker door and then yanked) a strategically embarrassing hole (not that she cared, but gods the ogling was getting old and one only has so many witty quips about nipples and breasts in general and then one has to start reusing jokes, which was never fun). 

Or that she'd had a sloppy landing (so what the raider had blown out one engine. She was Starbuck for frak's sake!). 

Or that there had been no hot or even warm water in the shower or that someone (her) had used up all her shampoo (and conditioner; the nerve of some people!), so she'd been forced (forced!) to steal Apollo's and now she kept smelling him whenever she turned her head, but really it was just her hair (not that she wanted him to be stalking up behind her or anything. No sir.).

And it certainly wasn't enough to go back down to the flight deck after cleaning up to watch one's nuggets land after a rough CAP and have one of the poor souls (frakking HotDog; she'd told him a million frakking times not to fly like that!) vomit on you when you handed up the clipboard. So now her clean(ish) tank was definitely on the disgusting side of dirty (revolting, one might even say) and she knew damn well there were no clean tanks left in her locker so it was time to beg one off Racetrack who'd sigh and roll her eyes but loan Kara a tank at least. 

But she'd had to find Racetrack and wandering around in eau de vomit with notes of Lee's shampoo was bad enough and then she'd opened the hatch (who didn't lock the motherfrakking hatch, for Artemis' sake!) and gods she'd never be the same again after seeing Ellen and Tigh going at it. At least they hadn't seen her (she hoped anyway). 

So when they slopped the canned genetically engineered peas on her plate, she knew it could and had gotten worse. There was nothing she hated more than canned peas. Well, maybe Tigh and Ellen and the cylons and Lee when he was being a total ass, but other than that there was nothing she hated more. Kara didn't even notice what other poor excuses for food she was served. She was fixated on those peas (they were taunting her; she knew it). 

Word must have gotten around the ship about her mood because people pointedly didn't look at her when she turned to find a place to sit. That was okay; she didn't want to sit with them anyway. Kara spotted Lee alone at one of the back tables, hunched over some paperwork, his tray of food barely touched (not that she blamed him; it was like chewing on a sweaty flight suit and even that tasted better than some of these toxic concoctions). He was the perfect dinnertime companion; odds of him talking while doing paperwork were low and she could always pop him one in the mouth if he got too chatty. Kara smiled as she walked over and dropped her tray on the table, but he didn't jump to her disappointment. 

As expected, the coffee she poured out of the carafe was cold and filmy and oily, but it was coffee (or maybe some mutant strain of mould). Kara made sure to place it on his paperwork, sloshing some over the edges. She smiled innocently when he glanced up at her and she marveled at the height to which his eyebrows could arch. Kara rather liked his eyebrows; there was many a lady in the fleet who wished to have such delicate brows. 

She ate her instant mashed potatoes without chewing them because then she'd have to contemplate why they tasted more like paste than potatoes and that really wasn't a good train of thought (even though she wondered anyway and gagged on her third forkful). The meatloaf (even worse thoughts, but thankfully no gagging) was washed down with half her mug of coffee. She thought drinking battery acid with chunks of road kill probably tasted similar. 

Those peas, though, she refused to touch. And they sat there, silently taunting her as she sipped at her coffee, wishing she had mind powers like in comic books and could heat it up with a thought. Lee was thankfully silent, although he did look up once (when she might have "accidentally" dribbled more coffee on his papers) to comment she was getting a little big for her tanks and might want to lay off the starch. It wasn't her fault Racetrack was a twig who wore two sizes smaller (that allergy to doing laundry was really biting her in the ass today). 

Finally, her mug was empty and Kara contemplated the disgusting residue in the bottom of the white porcelain, wondering if it foretold her death by toxic mould disguised as coffee or was just a testament to the hard water. "Lee," she said, waiting for him to look up and snapping her fingers when he wasn't prompt enough. "What do the fates have in store for me?" She shoved the mug into his face, almost punching him in the nose with it.

"Are you frakking kidding me?" he asked, leaning back to glare at her. "I'm trying to do paperwork, Kara."

"I know," she told him with her most charming grin. 

He sighed and rolled his eyes, going back to his papers. Kara's eyes narrowed and fell to rest on the peas (well if she wasn't going to eat them, they shouldn't go to waste!). She picked her fork up casually, pretending to chase a last bite around her plate before chewing on it contemplatively and loudly enough Lee glared at her again. She smiled innocently, putting it back down in the pile of mutant peas. 

Ready. Aim. Fire. The scoop of peas pelleted Lee and his paperwork (and maybe the wall and the floor too). His head jerked up, blue eyes pinning her to her seat as she leaned back in her chair, cackling helplessly at both her prank and his expression (and maybe a little thrill ran up her spine at that look, not that she'd ever admit it). 

"Kara," he growled, and she could see his jaw muscles working overtime as he glared at her. She was still giggling when he flung some of his peas back at her. 

"Hey!" she protested, the feet of her chair slamming down hard against the floor.

"Tit for tat," he told her with a smirk before returning his gaze to his papers. 

Kara picked up her plate and rose in one quick motion, dumping them onto his head (he couldn't think that would be the end of it. Lee wasn't that dumb.). 

"Starbuck!" he yelled before lunging at her across the table. She shuffled backwards, toward the buffet of stale dinner rolls only the most adventurous even attempted to eat.

The mashed potatoes hit her in the back just as she turned to pick up a roll and her hands moved to the coffee carafe instead. No one beat Kara Thrace at her own games!

"No, Kara, no!" he protested as the cold coffee hit him in the chest. The plastic pot tumbled carelessly to the floor as Kara screamed and ran for the counter that separated the mess workers from the pilots, vaulting over it in a neat motion. Lee was one step behind her and the kitchen workers scurried out of range as Kara thrust her hand into the potatoes and delivered a handful square to Lee's face. 

"That's it," he muttered, wiping his face away and grimacing at the glue-like taste. He hooked his foot behind Kara's and they both tumbled to the floor as his other foot stepped down onto a can of spray cheese one of the mess workers had dropped in her haste to get away. "Perfect," he muttered.

Kara tried to ignore the way it felt to be pressed beneath him as she thrashed and tried to escape (it would do no good to lose because she got distracted!). "Noooooo!" she protested as Lee leveled the can of spray cheese at her and pressed down on the nozzle. 

At least the cheese didn't smell like vomit, was her first thought as she flailed about, shoving at him as he laughed. Kara decided her best means of escape was through some blatant cheating, so she snuck her hand under Lee's coffee soaked tanks and tickled him (and maybe she copped a feel of those delicious abs of his, but she wasn't going to grope and tell). 

And while he was trying to escape her hand and spray her with canned cheese at the same time, Kara wriggled out from under him, scrambling to escape out the opening into the mess (maybe he'd tackle her again). As she came flying out from the kitchen on her hands and knees she found they had an audience who were and had apparently been cheering the whole time. Kara was a little irked she'd been so into Lee she hadn't noticed. What if they had started frakking on the floor (not that they ever would, but still)?!

She heard him as he came scrambling out from behind the counters and she made a lunge for the first available weapon—canned cherry pie filling in something pretending to be crepes. Three of them hit Lee with a solid wet smack before she found herself face down into the metal floor, Lee pressed against her back. Something she hoped wasn't cottage cheese (although that would be preferable to it being coleslaw) was dropped unceremoniously onto her freshly twice-washed hair. He was going to pay for that. 

Then he put peas down her pants and Kara screeched her rage into the floor. 

"Say uncle," Lee demanded in that superior tone of his that made Kara want to hit him. She struggled to wiggle out of his hold, her clothes sticking to both her and the floor and yet making her slide around at the same time. The peas in her pants (and panties!) were not helping. She cursed, loudly.

That's when she noticed the mess had gone oddly silent and a sudden feeling of foreboding suddenly appeared in her stomach. Lee's weight eased against her back and she pushed herself up, dreading looking up, but she did so anyway.

And there he was. The Old Man himself. Kara and Lee shared a sheepish glance before looking back at Adama. He didn't look too pleased. Kara wished she didn't have peas in her underwear as she snapped a quick salute. At least no one knew she had peas in her panties (well Lee might, the deviant frakker). She could barely subdue her snort of laugher and it earned her a hard glare. 

She wasn't really surprised that their extracurricular dinnertime activities ended them up in the brig. Really, with her luck, she was surprised she wasn't licking the mess clean with her tongue and an old toothbrush. She still had peas in her underwear though (not like one could remove them in the trip from mess to brig). 

"Lee," she told her cellmate in a no-nonsense tone, "turn around."

He merely arched a brow from where he lay on the bunk, staring at the bars on the ceiling. "Why should I?"

She frowned hard at him, enough to make him look at her. "I don't trust you not to have a handful of peas hidden on your person."

"Come on, Lee! I don't have any frakking peas to throw at you!"

"Oh, but you do have peas." He began to look suspicious. "Get rid of them. Playtime is over."

Her smile was tight as she wiped some cheese from her jaw onto Racetrack's tanks. "So turn around."

"Where are the peas?" he asked, looking much too curious. 

"They may or may not be in my frakking panties, you pervert." 

Lee began to laugh and she glared at him, turning away to thrust her hand down her pants. It was so terribly undignified to be hopping around with one's hand down one's pants as one tried to remove peas from one's panties. Kara hated him a little as she succeeded in her mission and sat down against the wall to plot her revenge (did the fleet have any whipped cream left?).   



End file.
